Dr. Nieter received a B.S. in Physics and Mathematics, graduating Summa Cum Laude from The Ohio State University, and received his Ph.D. in Physics from the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU).

While a research associate at CU's Center for Integrated Plasma Studies, Dr. Nieter was a principal developer for the numerical simulation package VORPAL used in computational plasma physics research. Dr. Nieter's involvement also included research projects using VORPAL to study Laser Wakefield Acceleration and electron Bernstein heating of fusion plasmas and the presentation of the results at various scientific conferences.

Additionally, while a CU research assistant, Dr. Nieter conducted computational particle physics research, running Monte Carlo simulations of quark/gluon systems on DEC Alpha work stations and Cray supercomputer again presenting the results at an international conference. At Tech-X Corporation, Dr. Nieter works on C++ software development projects for plasma simulation, including the VORPAL technology.